Anyway they were;

1. If you were to describe you experience of church as a smell what would it be?
2. What Church was a flavour what should it taste like?
3. If you think of church in terms of a biscuit, what biscuit describes you experience of church? What biscuit do you think church should remind you of?
4. Describe what you want from church in terms of a colour
5. What sound would best describe your expectation of the presence of God?

Feel free to comment.

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Growing up, the smell of brewing coffee was a familiar smell. My father loves coffee….it was the smell of the morning.  I also love coffee shops…you know, the evil chain ones!! Where no matter where you are in the world, you step in, and are immediately engulfed by a warmth and a familiar smell that makes you feel right at home. My Aunt and Uncle love coffee too, and  I have many distinctive memories of the smell of lovely coffee being poured into nice cups after a meal….always accompanied by some lovely desert.

Coffee makers are regular features in most American homes. They are as standard as having an electric kettle (which most American homes still don’t have) When I moved to Ireland I quickly got used to the ritual of boiling the kettle and then choosing between tea or freeze dried coffee. It wasn’t so bad. The instant coffee wasn’t as bad as the fine powdery stuff one associates it with back in the states. So I didn’t think too much about it. Until one evening, we were having a small group meeting from church, and my friend Marie was hosting it. At that time I didn’t know her well. She was a fellow American living in Limerick and working with the church. But when I stepped into her home that evening, it hit me. The smell of freshly brewed coffee. She has obviously invested in a coffee maker as a necessity, and as she was hosting a meeting in her home, she had done the traditional American thing of brewing a pot of coffee before everyone arrived. I was reminded of just how much nicer properly brewed coffee is. It was such a comforting feeling….being all cozied up in her living room, cup of coffee in hand. I felt at home. It’s the smell more than anything..the atmosphere.

So Jon and I are starting a new Life Group (small group/house group/house church/cell group) out of New Life Church. Our friends Dan and Jayne are joining us and together we really looking forward to it. Today was our kick off party. We invited several families over for a bring and share Sunday lunch and it was great fun. Kids were running around everywhere and conversations were buzzing. Jon made a massive pot of chilli, and we had to borrow plates from the church because we did not have enough ourselves. It was a really great feeling being able to open our home and have so many people over. Eventually we’re hoping to reach out into the estate we’re living on…and join in with whatever God has planned for this place.  For now though, we’re just focusing on establishing our group, forming genuine friendships, and gaining  a real  sense of community.

We want there to be a richness about our group. Not a material richness…but a sense that God has something to give us and wants to really meet us and be real in our lives.  Sometimes Christians have a bad reputation for doing things on the cheap. Custard creams and instant coffee after the meeting…that sort of thing. Although you could argue that’s being sensible and all that…we are wanting our group to reflect the blessing and richness of God in a way that helps people to realize they are loved, valued, and deserving of God’s goodness in their lives. So we’ve really pushed the boat out…and bought….a coffee maker. Actually it wasn’t that expensive….a small thing really…but I’m really looking forward to putting a pot on to brew this coming Tuesday….and everything else that’s going to happen with this group in the coming months!

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The first looking at what we know as clear and basic biblical truth, then  I want to look at what this means in terms of biblical intrepretation and how we read the bible.

The basic truths about the end times which I believe are self evident in the New Testament.

• Jesus will come again physically, this will mark the completion of this age.
• Every eye will see him when he comes again.
• He will judge the living and the dead.
• No one knows the date or the hour of his return.
• It will be proceeded by a time of struggle strife and persecution for the church.
• It will be proceeded by false prophets, and messiahs.
• After he comes he will establish the completion of his kingdom.
• When Jesus speaks of his Kingdom in the gospels he is not always reffereing to the end times, but often to his rule in the here and now.
• That we have been in the last days since his crucifixion.

Most serious evangelical scholars of any position ( pre-millenial, post -millenial or a-millenial.), will agree with the abover statements, and to my mind it forms a basis of biblical truth on the subject that can be preached without causing strife or grief between believers.

My stance is somewhere between what Jason Bee calls pan millenialsim (it will all pan out in the end) and an a-millenial stance which sees end times teaching as a simple progressions of

1. Jesus first coming – Recorded in the gosepls
2. Church Age ( which is the millenium mentioned in Revalation 20 )
3. Tribulation and trials – including false prophest and teachers – which leads into
4. The coming of the final antichrist(s)
5. The 2nd coming of Christ – including what most people call the rapture.
6. Judgement
7. The New Heaven and the New Earth

Compared to the classic penetcostal stance which Paul Williams has taught this is am much simpler model , which holds very closely with the direct teaching of Jesus in Matthew 23. This leads one to ask why people have come to the understanding which Paul has preached recently.

The answers is how we treate and use the book of Revelation. The classic pentecostal stance sees Revelation as a book of one (or sometimes two seperate visions), which are all placed in the future, which are linear in progression and are as literalistic as possible in interpretation.  If you take this stance on how to read the book of Revalation you start to need to do the theological somersaults that a pre millenial stand takes.

The question remains  ‘Is this correct way to interpret the book of Revelation?’.  My resounding answer would be No. I believe it is applying standard to the book of Revelation which the book was never written for.

In the last 300 years our socities view of truth has become scientific, we regard truth is only what is seen as being sceintifically, physically and literally true. Other forms of revalation and belief are seen as opinion and not ‘truth’.

Thus if we believe the bible to be the Word of God and to be true. We start to understand this in solely terms all of the bible needing to be literal and scientifically true, to be seen as beign  authorative. In this mindset to interpret any form of biblical litearture as none literal, symbolic or allegorical, is to see it as less true or an attack on the authority of scripture.

I dont see this as being appropriate for reading literature that was written 2000 years ago, to apply a modern sceitific and literalistic mindset to a form of ancient writing written 1700 years before that mindset became common place seems out of place, and to a certain extent a shows desire to twist scripture in a way that was never meant at its time of writitng. We need to understand revelation as it was written not by a modern set of standards or by a modern standard of truth.

I am quite clear in my view that the book of revelation is not one clear, linear prediction of the future. But a number of illustartion of things which have happened in the past and will happen in the future described and explained from numerous angles with numerous emphasis. These visions use large degress of imagery from the Old Testament, and are not plainly spoken.

Evidence for this comes from

1. Repeated themes recurring in the books.
2. Clear references to things in the Life of Christ, and in cosmological history (the fall of a thirds of the angels).
3. The vivid use of Old testament pictoral langauge.
4. The progression of themes from vision to vision in the book.
5. Scholarly opinion on the nature of apocolyptic literature.
6. The need of John ot to be planespoken in his writing as he was in prison in patmos at the time of writing

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Firstly, I don’t think of it as causing a stink.  It’s a disagreement with someone. I have a lot of time for Paul and agree with him on vast variety of issues. I think the ministry himself and Merle have brought into the church has been very valuable. I just happen to think on this issue Paul hasn’t fallen on the right side.

I do also think it’s important to debate the issue because of a number of factors, some relating to the church situation, but most relating to good theology and good biblical interpretation.

It is a distinct change in the churches historical position on the subject.

Previously the elders presiding over the teaching in the church (Roy and Rob) did not hold his viewpoint, did not teach his viewpoint, and I believe would not have allowed his viewpoint to have been aired on a Sunday morning. I believe to use the opportunity of NLC not having an elder with theological training, to bring us a new (to us) and different line of teaching was potentially divisive and a mistake .

It can undermine the authority of Preaching

I think this sort of preaching can lead to a disrespect of the pulpit.  When we preach,we claim to be declaring the truth of Gods word, and as such believe we speak with some level of authority because we do so. When we say such basic bible truths such as  ’God is love’, and ‘Christ died for us’ we speak with authority.

When we get up and preach inaccuracies and obvious conjecture this reduces the authority in which we speak the Bible’sbasic truths.

Paul made numbers of blatant and obvious mistakes in attempt to relate the book of Revelation to the 21st century modern geo political situation. For example, China’s army is 1.8 million,  not 200 million like stated (I did encounter a couple sources claiming otherwise, but they were all trying to justify this viewpoint.  Anything neutral or not theological was referring to the smaller figure ).

Relating the 10 headed beast to EU, may have been believable in 1980 when the EU had 10 countries, but becomes ridiculous in 2010 when the EU has over 20.  It becomes laughable when you claim  it relates to countries with full voting rights.

The declaration that Jesus will return exactly 7 years after the rebuilding of the temple would also be rejected by most Biblical scholars in contradiction to the direct teaching of Christ, when he said ‘no man knows the day or hour’

If we make these basic errors from the pulpit, on even off side or irrelevant points,we reduce the authority of preaching in our church.

It focuses a believer on the Kingdom of God in the future millennium, and not in the  a present reality.

Of the two major themes of Jesus ministry was the Kingdom of God (the other was the cross). He spoke about  both the future tense and the present tense, many of his miracles and training of the disciples was about the present tense of the Kingdom of God.

Many of the Pharisees (and at times the disciples) didn’t get what Jesus was saying and doing because they could only see the Kingdom as a physical  entity involving Jerusalem and the Jewish state, rather than a current reality based on the presence of the King of Kings.

A viewpoint that believes that God will institute a future earthly and temporal kingdom (doesn’t his Kingdom have no end?) starts peoples minds focusing towards the fulfilment of Gods Kingdom being focused more in the future age than the now,we start to defer the blessings of God to a future age.

It creates an unbalanced view of Israel’s roll in the future

The stance that Paul preached is a stance that can lead to an over emphasis on the role of Israel in the future. On the whole, there are only one or two chapters in the letters which speak in any depth of Israel’s future role and purpose in Gods Plan. Talk to some people who take the stance and you would believe it was the central thrust of the New Testament.

On top of this, Pauls view looks to restablishment of the temple, which is a complete anathema to my theology. The temple was at the heart of the old covenant which

• could not save us.
• was there to convict us not to redeem us.
• kept us out of the presence of God.
• could point us forward to our new deal with God.

The book of Hebrews tell us that now as Christians, we have a better temple, a better covenant and a better high priest. At the point of the crucifixion God choose to destroy the temple by ripping the curtain  from top to bottom. Why do we believe that in any way he wishes to reinstitute it?

It creates an  overly complex view of the end times.

The pre-millennial view creates a viewpoint which has 2 judgements, numerous tribulations, a 2nd coming in two parts, an many other complex and somewhat cumbersome events to fit into your end times calendar.  All which can be very difficult to reconcile with each other, and quite often when people do so they end up compromising other more central doctrines.

Dangerous methods of interpreting the bible are justified by this theology.

Dispensationalism which effectively disregards the teaching of Jesus as being relevant to Christians today (as it belongs to the Jews in the millennium,we only need to bother with the teaching of Christ.) is justified by the premillenial position which was put  forward to the church.

Even though Paul Williams does not hold this view, the end times position he supports is the basis for it. Darby, the person responsible for this view point is also known as the father of dispensationalism.

There are a  few other downsides to this theology but for the moment ill sign off as the post has become very lengthy.

Next time the final point part 4. what do I believe about the end times?

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First, I think that the reading of the book of Revelation as one continuous vision and sequence of events  is incorrect.  I have a number of reasons for thinking so and will outline them here.

1. It takes no account of the type of literature which Revelation is. The literalistic approach treats Revelation as if it is a historical narrative (ie gospel or history), when it is in fact a separate type of literature know as apocalyptic literature.  This type of literature is known to be non sequential and  symbolic.
2. The often repeated symbolism (3 lots of seven judgements) and events (multiple appearances of multiple beasts) in the chapters of revelation would lead one to believe that we are reading multiple descriptions from different viewpoints of the same thing as God seeks to build up a more complete picture of events  for us.
3. The the passage in Revelation 12. This passage is clearly referring to the birth of Jesus, from Israel(the woman) as the male child who will rule the nations, that Satan attempts to kill via Herod and the flight into Egypt. The passage reads:
   

   Then I witnessed in heaven an event of great significance. I saw a woman clothed with the sun, with the moon beneath her feet, and a crown of twelve stars on her head. She was pregnant, and she cried out because of her labor pains and the agony of giving birth.

   Then I witnessed in heaven another significant event. I saw a large red dragon with seven heads and ten horns, with seven crowns on his heads. ⁴ His tail swept away one-third of the stars in the sky, and he threw them to the earth. He stood in front of the woman as she was about to give birth, ready to devour her baby as soon as it was born.

   She gave birth to a son who was to rule all nations with an iron rod. And her child was snatched away from the dragon and was caught up to God and to his throne. And the woman fled into the wilderness, where God had prepared a place to care for her for 1,260 days.

   Then there was war in heaven. Michael and his angels fought against the dragon and his angels. And the dragon lost the battle, and he and his angels were forced out of heaven. This great dragon—the ancient serpent called the devil, or Satan, the one deceiving the whole world—was thrown down to the earth with all his angels.

   The bold items are images of items which I  believe had clearly happened by the end of the gospels, and this being the case it is impossible for the book of Revelation  to be seen as a logical train of future events

My second reason for disagreement is the sheer amount of conjecture that the stance requires and creates. Let me explain what I mean by conjecture.

 I see four levels of interpretation that can come from teaching the Bible.

1. Direct teaching of the simple truths of scripture with no level of interpretation required. ie God is Love, Jesus saves, Forgive your enemies, Turn the other cheek, Pray to God, be full of the spirit.
2. Doctrines which are simple explanations of Biblical truths, which the church has held from the beginning, ie the trinity, justification by faith alone, baptism of the holy spirit.
3. Positions are beliefs that require further distilling and abstracting of  simple biblical truths and usually require balancing one set of difficult scriptures against another. Examples would be, once saved always saved vs conditional salvation, freewill vs predestination.
4. Conjecture is believing things which  require  a level of biblical interpretation where the best we can say is that they could be true. It is us applying our thoughts, view points, and experiences into scripture. These things may be true , but on the same hand they may not be. This happens mainly when we seek to relate prophetic scripture to world events or other scriptural events where scripture draws no real linkage. Example, was Melkizadeck in Genesis Jesus?

When preaching, I believe it is advisable to stay with direct biblical teaching and doctrine whenever possible, be careful when taking theological positions, and avoid conjecture as much as possible.

Unfortunately, the literalistic stance which Paul took lends itself all to readily to conjecture. The assumption that Jesus will return 7 years after the temple is rebuilt is conjecture (I am being very nice there), anything in the book of revelation referring to the EU is conjecture and the precise nature of the anti Christ is conjecture.

The belief system Paul expounded to my mind does nothing but pile conjecture upon conjecture. The central truths that Jesus taught about about his return in the gospels gets lost in 1/2 baked ideas about the temple, the role of Israel, who the anti Christ is and why anyone left wing politically is to blame.

But why does this matter ?  Why am I still kicking up a  fuss about this ? I will write about that in part three of this mini series

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However I do need to say that I think the recent series on the end times that  he brought to New Life was a mistake, that the theology was in error and many of the ‘factoids’  he used to back up his theories were just factually wrong.

Paul’s basic stance is one which is not outside  the basic beliefs of many Pentecostal and Evangelical Christians.  It comes from taking an extreme literalistic interpretation of the book of Revelation, and a number of the the prophetic books of the old testament.

However, his theology is outside of what has been preached at New Life Church for the last 20 years, and is a distinct departure from what the people who have been responsible for teaching (Roy and Rob) have been willing to say from the pulpit.

Roy was strongly  a-millennial and would have rejected Paul’s teaching firmly and roundly(and probably loudly knowing Roy). Rob was more circumspect and would only teach the basics that Jesus clearly preached, that he would come again, that we do not know when, and that  all things would be made new at the end.  I never firmly understood his complete position, but I never heard him preach something that I could describe as conjecture on the subject.

Both these men would have resisted the preaching of the message Paul preached from the pulpit for differing reasons, so I was a little disturbed at the reasoning in moving  this  controversial and theologically foreign doctrine to the forefront at New Life Church when unity what is required at the moment.

Paul’s preaching on the rapture as an event before the great tribulation, and separate from the 2nd coming of Christ is based on popular doctrine that has been made famous in recent decades by the Left Behind series of books, and was originally popularised in the  last century by the Schofield reference bible.

However, the belief that Christians would be raptured before the tribulation can be found at no point in church history before 1860 and the prophecy came  from a group called the Irvingites. I am always very sceptical of any doctrine which cannot be found throughout church history, and am extremely resistant to any doctrine founded on an initial basis of prophecy rather than scripture.

My issue is not with that one aspect which I believe is in error, butwith the whole approach which I believe  adds great confusion, complication, conjecture,  fiction,  and speculation  to any area of Biblical understanding which is difficult at the best of times.

As I have previously said the position Paul Williams takes is based on the foundation that the book of Revelation is to be understood literally as one continuous vision of the future which starts at Revelation 4 after the letters, and does not stop until Revelation 22.

I am firmly of the opinion that it is based on a flawed assumption of ‘modernism’ (the western world view of the the last 300 years), which is that for something to be true it must literally, scientifically and logicallybe  true. It leaves little room for metaphor, symbolism and writing which is not sequential, which is what I believe the books Revelation is.

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